Having Obtained Help of God

As I post this, I recognize there are people doing their best against other people and circumstances whose best seem a little better than theirs. That is not just discouraging; it can be debilitating.

There is nothing more humbling than the realization that your best is simply not good enough – not good enough to obtain what you want. Perhaps not even good enough to hold on to what you have. It is even more sobering when what once “got the job done” now can’t even apply for the job.

This is not just about the person who lost a good-paying job to the current economy and all their skills, experiences, and references can’t even secure an interview. There is also the young person who, if they showed up on the first day of any class, then an “A” was guaranteed…but now high school is over and a butt-kicking awaits them in every class. There may be a young mother who figured she had the hang parenting and was eager to have the next child…and now multiple children in diapers and pull-ups has her sleepless and eating strained peas because she’s too tired to cook.

Whether these, or some other, circumstance leaves someone overwhelmed, a word that comes to mind is John 15:4-6.

It does not matter how someone, who once did great things, comes to find themselves doing next to nothing apart from God – whether the rug was pulled out from under them, or they ran so fast that they could not stay on the rug. What matters is, when their best became ineffective, when they found that they could do nothing, whether they realized they were no longer abiding in Christ.

At issue is often a human perspective on progress versus a spiritual journey of progress. A common understanding is this: people grow, mature, and gain and develop skills. As a result, they get more things, hold more influence, and have an increasing cycle of gain, material and otherwise. Indeed, that is the pattern by which many people, in or out of the body of Christ come to lead productive and prosperous lives. However, for anyone believing that is the way things should always occur, I offer a name: Job.

Some may say the rug was pulled out from under Job. I disagree, after considering Job 1:20-22. The rug was pulled out from under Job’s belongings, not the man himself. Job clung to his rug – the name of the Lord.

Which is my point in part: abiding in Christ requires a man hold on to Christ. Had Job abandoned faith because his belongings abandoned him, no help would have come from the throne. Job would have experienced what Matthew later observed when Christ held back good deeds, And he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief. (Matthew 13:58 KJV)

Abiding in Christ requires tenacity. The branch that loses, for whatever reason, its connection to the vine does not survive. Similarly, the man who does not cling to Christ will find himself separated from the only help that can truly benefit him. With that thought in mind, consider Romans 8:35-39 carefully.

My first thought is to note all that seeks to separate a man from Christ’s love. A man’s troubles seek to come between a man and the love of God by creating fear, debasement, or pain. They do not relent, nor do they change purpose. Problems do not come to strengthen any man; they come to destroy him. Whether they succeed depends on the divine help a man obtains to withstand the attack. God is eager and willing to help any who call on Him. However, obtaining God’s help is no passive activity:

Psalms 34:4-6 KJV I sought the LORD, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears. (5) They looked unto him, and were lightened: and their faces were not ashamed. (6) This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.

The “waiting whipping boy” will not get help from the Lord. Instead of cowering under the blows of his circumstance, he must venture out and seek God. The “silent sufferer” will not get help from God; when a man is not certain he is hearing from God, he must make sure God hears from him – CRY OUT. God’s man is not some great stone that quietly resists adversity. Rather, The righteous cry, and the LORD heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles. (Psalms 34:17 KJV)

Moreover, he will need to seek and cry again, for Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the LORD delivereth him out of them all. (Psalms 34:19 KJV) The Lord continues to deliver, because the “hits” will “keep on comin’.”

God’s help, even God’s deliverance, does not necessarily end of the struggle. Rather, it is the beginning of His power, countering what troubles His child. As troubles mount, the power resting on a person increases.

We remember with difficulty that, despite how it looked, Christ’s time on the cross was no moment of despair, but one of power. For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. (1 Corinthians 1:18 KJV) Power met Christ on the cross, to counter and overcome His trouble. Can any more trouble can mount, upon any man, than to be nailed to a tree and left to die for another’s sin? …But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. (Romans 5:20) God did not remove the sins from Christ; He helped His Son bear them so they would be abolished upon His death. In the same way, God will not remove trouble from His people; He will help them bear up under troubles until they, like Christ, come home.

This is what to do with help obtained from God: Acts 26:19-22. Continue on the path God has set, no matter the obstacles, no matter the opposition. God’s help overcomes obstacles that a man might continue in the way God chooses for him. It does not come so that a man or woman might turn to the right or left to avoid either this trouble or even the next one. Consider what Paul was able to do with the help obtained of God:

2 Corinthians 11:24-28 KJV (24) Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. (25) Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep; (26) In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; (27) In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. (28) Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches.

Whether Paul survived these troubles was less important than the fact that God, by these troubles, heaped the power of Christ upon Paul, and let it rest there, because Paul would not turn from what God had told him to do.

The question often becomes whether a man wants God’s power upon His life, or whether he wants a comfortable life, with or without God’s power. This matters because the power of God is no show horse, abiding upon a man or woman simply to display God’s greatness. God’s power, and the help obtained by it, is a workhorse, transforming those upon whom it rests from people who take comfort in the world into people who take comfort in God.

Having obtained help of God, I continue…despite everything that seeks for me to stop. I continue, moving beyond many things over which I have neither power nor control. I continue, having not seen Christ, but increasing my love for Him. I continue, persuaded that in the Father’s house with many mansions, one waits for me.

I continue, because I have many problems, about which I cry out. Fortunately for me, there is so much God, of Whom I obtain so much help. So also is there help for you.

Oh, you thought those were representations of Donald Trump? You poor soul.

Virtually every event, good or bad, of Trump’s adult life appeared in one or more sections of the New York Times; in that more than four decades, the Times and other media outlets put no nasty labels on Trump. It wasn’t until this, his second presidential run – after multiple fits and starts, that the press determined to supplement his name with colorful adjectives, and it did not take long…

Trump did not carry the press’ and political elites’ well-massaged messages – biased special interest concerns, backed by deceptive opinion polling – to Americans; he brought an uncompromising and politically incorrect American message to them. He spoke to the despised press and the detested political elites the way many Americans speak of them in their homes or with friends. Consequently, their response to Trump’s open abuse of them – the condescension, the name-calling – was not directed at Trump; it came through Trump…aimed at the American people.

They were dissin’ Trump, but they were gunnin’ for you.

The press’ and the political establishment’s prolonged thermonuclear attack on Donald Trump was enough to make Hiroshima look like a bottle-rocket, yet it was not enough to separate the American people – you – from supporting someone who spoke, not as a Democrat or a Republican, not as a liberal or a conservative, and neither as a special interest group advocate, but as an American man giving voice to what Americans have consistently throughout the Obama years, and even longer: “the country is on the wrong track – and you guys in the press and in D.C. won’t tell the truth about why and, more importantly, won’t do a thing about what we know is wrong.”

Americans knew sanctuary cities for illegal immigrants were wrong-headed since Los Angeles implemented Special Order 40 in 1979, forbidding its police department from seeking to determine anyone’s immigration status, or arresting or booking anyone for violations of U.S. immigration law. Despite that knowledge, the number of U.S. sanctuary cities grew to more than 300, illegal immigrants became more and disproportionately criminal, press reporting sympathized with the “plight” of alien criminals than with their citizen victims, and the American government refused to act on behalf of the American people.

Americans knew race relations were not how the black and brown race-baiters portrayed them; after all, a racist country could not elect, and then RE-ELECT, elect Barack Obama. In fact, Obama received most of his votes – both times – from whites. Despite that, America learned that Obama and his wife harbor racial animosity. They learned that only #BlackLivesMatter, and that to say otherwise, was a societal and political sin. In spite of this emotional bullying, Americans also recognized that black self-genocide – in U.S. streets and at abortion “clinics” – occurs at rates that make the efforts Ku Klux Klan and the Nazis – COMBINED – almost forgettable.

Trump’s election astounded House Speaker Paul Ryan:
And Paul Ryan was wrong. Donald Trump did not hear a voice in the country that no one else heard; after all, more than 60 million people voted for Trump. He chose to hear and voice the American people’s concerns, rather than share D.C. Republican values:
…the same values which betrayed the will of the electorate in both 2010 and 2014.

Obama even mocked the idea that the poeple’s choice would occupy the office they desired for him:
Nevertheless, after getting lying lips in 1988, an impeached president in 1996, Supreme Court confusion in 2000, and the no contests of 2008 & 2012, the America nation won a general election, and did so in the person of Donald J. Trump…

Mr. Obama might want to pick up that smartphone.

Name(required)

Email(required)

Website

Comment(required)

Like this:

It is possible that the “No Christian should vote” movement, regarding either major party candidate in 2016 is primarily a social media phenomenon However, I have reviewed enough articles and had enough personal conversations to doubt that.

It is almost certain that anyone with even a remote church affiliation has heard the “ain’t neither of ’em godly” refrain, or the “I was supporting Cruz, but now that y’all rejected him…” mantra, or the “We don’t need to worry; God is in control” chant to justify not voting for either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump next month.

Frankly, this is silly and one has to wonder, since very few who so speak are likely to do anything, between now and Thanksgiving, that is more significant about improving the state of the nation than step into a voting booth: what are these “faithful” folks thinking? While they may believe they are preparing the nation for a Holy Ghost “told you so”, after November 8th, they look more like the “sorry” kid no one picked for the sandlot game, who now wants to take his ball and bat and go home.

In other words, it seems like a power play…waged by those who in fact have no power. It is time for Christians to face facts.

The church in America is impotent in the nation’s public square, has been for more than a half century, supplanted by those who believe God should be absent from public policy discourse, those seeking “acceptable” homosexuality and other perversions, those who believe American compassion requires the surrender of American sovereignty, and those who desire unfettered slaughter of the nation’s next generation when they are most vulnerable. The American church is a marginal actor in American public life.

That the church should find itself so marginalized is odd for a few reasons, including:

• Pilgrims settled on the continent for the free practice of Christianity and, without it, the people lacked sufficient moral resolve even to form a nation,
• The teachings of Christianity form the underpinnings of America’s Constitution and legal system, and
• Those who claim Christianity outnumber America’s atheists, homosexual apologists, compassionate globalists, and abortionists.

Despite this, instead of reasserting the Christian perspective and leading the national narratives, the church stands on the national sidelines, wringing its hands over policies it will not uniformly nor effectively oppose, and railing against electoral choices that it doesn’t support, while rallying to no viable alternatives. So, America’s Christian church, instead of casting doctrine to all from the national stage, lobs rotten tomatoes from the nation’s peanut gallery at policies that offend its sensitivities and its God; the church has ceded its power to change anything, with little sign that it seeks to reclaim its leadership mantle.

If the church will not vote, and it is apparent that it lacks the temerity to take up arms, as it once did against an English king, as it did against slavery, as it did against segregation (though those weapons were not carnal), then what good is it? It is become the salt that has lost its savor, lacking the courage or power to protect the unborn from wanton slaughter, or its own ability to worship as it sees fit. Yet American Christians are unwilling to stand united against Hillary Clinton?

Despite her disdain for Catholics:

Despite her disregard for Christian beliefs regarding abortion:

Despite her desire to subjugate Christian doctrine and elevate the homosexual agenda:

There is simply no courage, and therefore no spiritual power, in the American Christian church at large.

Had the 18th century church been dominated by the toothless, yapping chihuahua spirit of the modern American church, then the national anthem might yet be, ‘God Save the Queen’. Had the 19th century church been the same hand-wringing chatterboxes we see today, then chattel slavery would have ended via some man’s reversible whim, rather than by the cleansing and compelling dictate of shed blood. Had the 20th century church not overcome the double-minded among its ranks, then ‘separate but equal’ would still prevail in the land as a legal construct; however, church weakness, during that same century, resulted in the dismissal of God from the nation’s schools, and in the American womb being the place in which the overwhelming majority of the nation’s homicides occur. Yet, from that time to this, Christians in America yet claim access, both to God’s power and to His favor. However, such a claim by today’s church lacks the credibility to which the church of earlier times might be given.

For the church would NEVER sacrifice the American nation on an altar of ineffectual dictates and sanctimony, any more than it would withhold the gospel from a whoremonger or a corrupt financier. Yet this modern collection of the “faithful”, that claims relationship with God and His Christ in THIS country, often makes water seem like strong drink.

If the church today does not comprehend why the American nation, as described by its 240-year-old founding document, should be maintained, at virtually all cost, then it doesn’t…

If it cannot understand that Clinton should not, by any means, occupy the nation’s highest elected office, then it can’t…

But if it is now so lost in its understanding, to go along with its inability to shape the national conversation – when it was that very conversation regarding Christ which led to the nation’s founding – it has lost touch with the importance of this nation in the world and of the deep ties between America and the Christian God. Its members should renounce their U.S. citizenship and remove the ‘reserved’ sign from their seats in the pews: it is a waste that they should have either.

Fortunately, there is always room at the Cross, for new member of the faithful – those bolder in their Christianity, as well as in their Americanism.

Like this:

• Segment the electorate into as many groups as practical, particularly at the state level,
• Empathize with sympathetic groups to create the illusion of a supportive coalition,
• Ignore conflicting interests within their coalition, speaking only of common goals,
• Hurry to the primary/caucus before tensions in the coalition become unmanageable,
• Repeat, in each state, adding/deleting groups as necessary to secure enough delegates,
• Discard nationally unappealing or “extreme” groups at the convention, and
• Craft a party message that:
– Slights true believers,
– Dupes fence-sitters,
– Placates the disaffected, and
– Appeals to voters not in the party.

Call it a “Divide, Destroy, then Cobble Together” strategy, a key feature of which is, no matter the general election result, the nominee has a reasonable answer for those offended by his campaign positions: “Compromise”.

Winners laud compromise positions, even dishonest ones, as a key to victory, reminding tweaked supporters that winning is more important than “getting everything our way”. Victory soothes wounded supporters with ignored interests, and winning serves to keep all party supporters in line for the next run.

Losers curse compromise positions for their defeat. Instead of cooling supporter anger, they flagellate themselves for not listening to their “base”, and pledge greater ideological purity in future campaigns if supporters will “hang in there” with them.

And, no matter which “compromise” justification they receive, voters return to their places and further segment themselves, with each group seeking golden tickets – which do not exist – for their political concerns at the next quadrennial kabuki dance.

Rinse and repeat…every four years.

“Divide, Destroy, then Cobble Together” trails only the National Football League in popularity, and is now so lucrative that partisan “journalists” enjoy a celebrity that eluded the Walter Cronkites and David Brinkleys, who earned respect by their unbiased – or at least less biased – reporting. It created television networks of highly paid talking heads, possessed of little to no journalistic ability or integrity, building their following and influence through with bias and air time. They, along with officeholders, candidates, and party officials work together to keep the nation divided and controlled by “conventional political wisdom”.

Consequently, parties and voters never quite align, making for increasingly dysfunctional federal governance. This creates greater political volatility, giving the talking heads more items about which to craft and apply their (in-) famous “talking points”. Government grows, individual liberties shrink, and almost everyone who helps Divide the nation, Destroy the nation, and then Cobble Together enough of the nation for an another round of division and destruction, manages to get paid.

Then the ground shifted. It began after the 2008 election.

A nation at war saw too little return on more than 7 years of blood and treasure invested abroad. Fiscal responsibility gave way to deficits, the resumption of unsustainable debt growth, and an economy in acute distress. Jobs were lost, homes foreclosed upon, and moneyed institutions that mismanaged funds received billions from the federal treasury. The nation needed a change.

And “Change” was promised, using the “Divide, Destroy, then Cobble Together” strategy. An unknown candidate told voters what they wanted to hear and, protectively cloaked in the historical significance of skin color, rode into the White House. Yet, this time, this president could not Cobble Together enough goodwill to compensate for the lies he did, and would, tell an already divided nation.

In its first midterm electoral opportunity, voters removed the president’s party from the majority in the House of Representatives, seeking balance. But the new majority were no more truthful than the president voters elected them to oppose; they failed to do the voters’ will. Then, in the next presidential election, “Divide, Destroy, then Cobble Together” gave voters a presidential challenger who varied from the distrusted president in little more than complexion; it failed to produce a distinction between presidential candidates that voters saw as a difference.

So, enter a man who fancied himself presidential material for decades and who, in 2011, polled ahead of the eventual 2012 GOP nominee, to seek a major party nomination. The practitioners and protectors of “Divide, Destroy, then Cobble Together” were incredulous. Among their assertions:

So, what took the finger of parties and pundits off the electorate’s pulse? Simply put, voters have a different heartbeat now, and stopped accepting the candidates that parties and pundits pushed upon them. So, a longtime Democrat party member cannot easily defeat a non-Democrat, and GOP voters reject GOP 8 governors (3 current), and GOP 5 Senators (4 current) to favor a real estate developer who’s never held public office. And the change impacts more than the current nominating campaign.

Since 2009, Democrats have hemorrhaged officeholders, at the federal (net 69 House, and 13 Senate, seats lost) and state (net 9 governor’s mansions lost, net 900+ state legislative seats, and 28 legislative majorities lost) levels. The nation is purging Democrats from power, and the party’s national footprint is shrinking.

Voter rejection of “Divide, Destroy, then Cobble Together” challenges both parties. Democrats face an existential threat; they must stop the bleeding. In addition to the Obama era losses, Democrats are switching parties during the primaries: 20,000 in Massachusetts, 60,000 in Virginia, smaller numbers in other states, and 1 in 5 Democrats say they would vote Trump in November. If they cannot revise their message, and especially if they fail in November, they risk marginalization and political insignificance.

The Republican challenge is simpler: they must either find the courage to complete their ideological purge, or yield to being a right-leaning national party with left-leaning D.C. leaders. If the leadership purge fails, the party will splinter, with each faction having less influence during the turmoil of transition.

However, should voters recognize how supportive the current major political parties are of the corruption that is the current federal government, they may decide not to take on party challenges, and instead #AlterOrAbolish the monster that resides on the Potomac River.

Like this:

My “pen” is largely silent during the 2016 presidential campaign and I would prefer it remain so; few things distract more from, while doing less to meet, this nation’s challenges than the two-year kabuki dance of those seeking the presidency. However, something so brazenly foul now occurs that it compels me to comment.

Donald Trump’s tour de force, seeking a major presidential party nomination, is shocking…to everyone except Trump. When he opted out of the 2012 campaign, Trump declared:

This decision does not come easily or without regret; especially when my potential candidacy continues to be validated by ranking at the top of the Republican contenders in polls across the country.

I maintain the strong conviction that if I were to run, I would be able to win the primary and, ultimately, the general election. I have spent the past several months unofficially campaigning and recognize that running for public office cannot be done half-heartedly. Ultimately, however, business is my greatest passion and I am not ready to leave the private sector.

Five years later, Trump looks prophetic, as he closes on the Republican Party Presidential Nomination. He also looks every bit the target, as the number, and intensity, of his critics mount, even as he succeeds.

This is no reference to Trump’s critics within the electorate; every presidential candidate has “enemy” voters. But Trump’s most ardent enemies are neither Republican voters nor Democrat…anyone. Rather, they are Republican elected officials and operatives who attack him publicly, personally, relentlessly, and almost as a matter of party honor. Some declare that a Trump presidency would destroy the party, and one of Trump’s rivals (at least temporarily) abandoned his effort either to win the nomination or to have a national political future by transforming his campaign into a kamikaze mission against the Donald.

However, even as some GOP’ers call for “All Hands on Deck” against Trump”, he is likely not their target at all…

For this differs from earlier “stop the outsider” efforts. Democrats acquiesced and welcomed “outsider” Jimmy Carter into their national fold – after determining no one could beat him – in 1976; Republicans similarly warmed to Ronald Reagan’s “inevitability”, four years later. However, resistance to Trump increases the closer he comes to the nomination, with major players openly declaring non-support of the party should Trump prevail.

The GOP has used their vaunted “deep bench” of “establishment-friendly” candidates, not as attackers of the opposition party, but as damsels tied to the tracks, hoping to derail the Trump Train. One should wonder why the GOP spends more time trying to change the mind of its base, than it spends countering the Democrat message.

Those willing to consider more than the current election cycle may recognize that these recent antics are part of Republican Party behavior that, for (at least) the last 7 years, demonstrates, strikingly, the party’s disdainful view of, and resultant estrangement from, those who support its stated principles. Consider the following:

• Why are the men who lost the last two general elections now experts on picking the party nominee; can anyone identify the national constituencies of either Romney or McCain? Romney lost a winnable election in 2012, and McCain was so battered in 2008 that Obama took care to rub McCain’s face in the dung of that defeat two years later:

Though the nation rejected these men, who kept the GOP from occupying the White House, the GOP welcomes, even encourages, their denigration of their current front-runner. Curious indeed.

• Marco Rubio’s only primary win occurred in liberal Minnesota; he appears unlikely to win the March 15 primary in his home state of Florida. Yet, the party supports him, though voters snubbed him in 24 of 25 contests. Again, curious indeed.

The party did not challenge characterizations of those exit polls as voter discontent, even as Republican voter turnout hit record levels, with high enthusiasm, as even more disrespectful of their voters than of their candidate field…because they are not willing to defend their voters…

Washington, D.C. establishment Republicans are losing control of their voters, and they are unhappy about that. Unhappy about a trend, since the 2010 midterm elections, that sees voters increasingly imposing their will upon the politicians’ best-laid plans. Against this backdrop, Trump is not a problem for the GOP as much as he is symptomatic of the voter problem they already have.

Consequently, stopping Trump is not about Trump at all; it is about regaining control of their constituency – YOU. A constituency at odds with them over Obamacare, joblessness, illegal immigration, the homosexual agenda, taxes, and deficits/debt; a constituency that is close to recalling that D.C. has no power save that which they authorize. A constituency that has already felled trees within the establishment, and which must be corralled before they clear more dead wood from the nation’s capitol.

D.C. Republicans cannot regain voter control without a presidential candidate that the party establishment can control (this is why they find Rubio appealing). Trump owes them nothing and needs nothing from them; he is, inarguably, not a man given to another’s control. Should he partner with an increasingly uncontrolled voter base, then everything establishment Republicans have built for themselves, via the federal government, is at risk.

By the way, Democrats do not rest easy about the GOP turmoil. Non D.C. Republicans currently occupy 31 of the nation’s 50 governor’s mansions, and control 67 of its 99 state legislative bodies, both significant increases since Obama’s 2009 inauguration. If the D.C. Republicans cannot get their constituents back in line, and Democrat voters tire of seeing neither their party nor their views represented, then the elephants trumpeting against left-leaning D.C. Republicans will seem mild, compared to the mule kick the left could receive from disgruntled Democrats.

Like this:

Over the course of 79 years, he became a military man, the husband of one woman for more than half a century, a baptized Catholic, the father of 3 and grandfather of 5, a decorated war veteran, a Southerner…and someone who, by choice, never again dwelled in New York City.

That is not to say that New York ever stopped being “home” to him. During my childhood, my parents would take us on alternating summer vacations; one year we would drive to New York and visit with my father’s family, and the next year we would drive to Oklahoma City for the Overton Family Reunion with my mother’s people.

I was always more excited to go to New York, and not because I liked my father’s family more. I could feel something different “in the air” every time we arrived, crossing the George Washington Bridge and traveling through the Lincoln Tunnel. The energy of that place is different, palpably so.

As I grew older, I adopted my father’s view; I remain fond of New York City, but I’ve not set foot there in nearly three decades. My father had New York values, for good or ill, and I imagine he might have been somewhat conflicted by this exchange from the last Republican presidential debate:

The conflict would not have been whether my father knew what those values were, as Senator Cruz indicated to a current New Yorker that she may not. Nor would it have involved Donald Trump’s defense of New Yorkers; my father would have concurred. The conflict would be between the values his hometown gave him, and the values it now makes most apparent to the world.

For Senator Cruz is correct: New York City is a “haven” for liberal elitists, who support abortion and homosexuality, who oppose individual gun ownership and the open practice of Christianity any place other than in churches, and anytime other than Sundays…and who see their values differently than other Americans see them. New York City conservatives, those that remain, hardly rule that roost and, judging by the 1999 interview Trump gave to Tim Russert, are more than a little bit influenced by the city’s predominant liberalism:

Stauncher conservatives may conclude that New York City is simply a nice place to be FROM.

Cruz is also correct in saying the Empire State has many good people who do not share liberal political values, but are no less governed by the liberals in Lower Manhattan, and in Albany. Unsurprisingly, those representing the city felt it appropriate to hit back at Senator Cruz, either indicating how its residents unite in taking offense at his remarks, or responding in more typical New York fashion…

For his part, Trump said some things that were true, and some things that only seem true, when speaking of New York’s response to the World Trade Center’s destruction.

Without controversy, they city’s response was amazing for its valor, its compassion, its demonstration of an indomitable spirit. It was indeed unique because of the city’s makeup, including the fact that only New York City HAD the World Trade Center, and the other resources that it could bring to bear because of its wealth, the size of its population, the fact it is a port city, etc. However, the basis of that response has nothing to do with the CITY’s values…

On a small island in Upper New York Bay in the Port of New York and New Jersey, a plaque, whose image appears below, resides on the inner wall of the Statue of Liberty’s pedestal:

Lady Liberty’s worldwide welcome, is to those coming to America, not simply to New York City. Given that an estimated 40% of Americans can trace their ancestry to someone who came through Ellis Island, neither all of the “huddled masses” nor all of their values remained in the Five Boroughs. The same bravery and resolve in the face of danger and uncertainty, the same compassion for the endangered neighbor and stranger alike, the same readiness to rebuild what others destroyed resides in every corner of the nation.

Consequently, those were not New York values shown on and after 9/11; those were AMERICAN values, albeit with a New York City accent. The same values were simultaneously on display at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and even more brilliantly displayed by those on Flight 93, who forced their hijacked airliner down in a field in Pennsylvania rather than allow themselves to be passengers on a death ride for other Americans.

I daresay that no matter what location in America had been attacked that day, the response would have been the same, according to American values in times of duress:

• Run to the battle,
• Help the hurting or the stumbled,
• Sacrifice and not let others fall or leave the fallen behind,
• Stop the attack, punish the attacker, and
• Rebuild what was destroyed.

So far, those with a disdain for liberty have managed only to thinly cover those values with a politically correct veneer. When anyone cuts through that veneer, and especially when that cut draws blood from their fellow citizens, Americans remain willing to address the situation, those affected, and also those who caused harm, according to American values. But those values are being undermined…by the influence of government that is increasingly liberal/progressive…and that works to repair and thicken the veneer, so future cuts are less likely to yield an American values response.

When an illegal alien – with seven felony convictions and who had been deported five times previously – killed Kathryn Steinle in San Francisco, using a gun (indirectly) supplied by the federal government, both the federal government and the criminal justice system acted contrary to American values. American values would do more to keep a foreign felon off the streets in this country. American values, upon discovering such a man, would act against him sooner, even dismantling the “sanctuary city” laws that allow American citizens to become prey. But American government values differ from those of the American people, whether through incompetence or through intent.

It is similar for the inner cities, where people of color die violently at rates normally reserved for combat zones. The same government “involvement” that frustrated American values by protecting and enabling Steinle’s killer, does more to maintain deadly environments in American cities than allow what is necessary to create more tolerable communities. Again, the government’s values differ from those of the people, and cover the people’s values so that only extreme and acute adversity might bring those values to the fore. Strangely, the carnage in Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere fail to move the American people to action. While some consider it a race issue, it likely has more to do with elected officials telling everyone that they will – and that only they can – address it, and convincing killer and victim alike that their help should come from one or more government programs…

My father lived by his New York values – or rather the American values he learned growing up in New York City. He knew who he was, knew what his values were; no one could redefine them for him, tell him he did not understand them, or offer a defense of them to benefit a political agenda.

Unfortunately, there are a decreasing number of New Yorkers, or Americans, like my father…and an increasing number prepared to line up and vote for a government whose values increasingly differ from their own, no matter from where they hail, and who is very much interested in telling Americans what their values are.

Like this:

A current Islamic objective is for Muslims to dwell throughout the world. The goal of Islam, from its founding, is Muslim supremacy wherever any follower of Mohammed may dwell. And quite a few Muslims dwell in France.

In 1967, France’s Muslim population reached 1,000,000 people. By 1994, the number had increased 200%, to 3 million, with accompanying assimilation “issues”. By 2010, that number had increased, by more than half, to 4.7 million, about 7.5% of France’s population; in Paris, Muslims were 15% of the city’s residents. This SHOULD not be a problem. Usually, it WOULD not be a problem. But Islam is most unusual.

By 2011, Muslims had established 751 “no-go zones” in France, that the French, especially women, were wise to avoid. The government knew of their existence, locations, and boundaries, yet would not alter its “diversity” policies to make those areas safe for all of France’s people. By 2013, other clashes between France’s secularism and Muslim tradition were apparent.

While France’s multiculturalism worked for Muslims, it became disastrous for France’s Jews. Though less than one percent of the French population, Jews were targets in 40% of French race crimes; in 2013, France led the world in the number of anti-Semitic attacks, with a number that had increased seven-fold since the 1990’s. The children of Israel got the message: by the time of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, Jews were getting out of France.

Victims lay on the pavement outside a Paris restaurant, Friday, Nov. 13, 2015. Police officials in France on Friday report multiple terror incidents, leaving many dead. It was unclear at this stage if the events are linked. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

Perhaps now is a good time for some reminders about this “religion of peace”.

Despite ancient military successes, Muslims did not fare well in modern conventional military operations against infidels. Israel mopped them up in 1948, 1967, and 1973 despite being outnumbered.

Israel Rolls Tanks in 1973 Arab-Israeli War.

More recently, they have been soundly defeated by Western forces, led by the United States, so long as America’s political leaders maintained their resolve. The Islamic State’s current apparent military prowess is less due to their ability and more to the unwillingness of Western powers, who are much stronger, to kill them.

Iraqi Soldiers Surrender to U.S.-led Coalition Forces

Nevertheless, and likely in response to the lack of military success, Islam – which has in no way renounced its goal – developed an alternative attack plan, one that requires no conventional armies, but is no less lethal and humiliating to Islam’s enemies. The attack comes in stages:

• Stage 1: Infiltration– Muslims move to non-Muslim countries in large numbers, and initiate visible, though often subtle, cultural conflicts

Muslim conquest of France now seems well into Stage 3, with other Western European nations being just an explosion and/or shooting away from a similar circumstance. As for the United States, the current presidential administration seems intent on accelerating Islam’s attack stages in America. In parts of Michigan, only a lawsuit has kept cities like Dearborn from Stage 3.

Interestingly, the secularism that France has championed since 1905 is the very reason they now respond ineffectively to attacks upon its capital city twice this calendar year; it renders French society unable to defend itself, even more than other Western European nations. God’s removal from France removed the will to defend their sovereignty; instead of being a country of French people who welcome others to their culture, they are a people Muslims believe will bend to Islam.

Simply put, when a society has no God, even those whose beliefs are radical and wrong can infiltrate, overwhelm, and defeat them. Charlie Hebdo cartoonist Joann Sfar, in his reaction to the worldwide outpouring of prayers in the wake of the terrorist attacks on Paris, gives insight into how close France may be to total defeat:

It can be no more clear. There is no small number of French people who see no need for God at this, or any other, time. Faith has turned away from the immortal and eternal, and to things that can defend neither their lives nor their values against a determined adversary.

Therefore, the terrorist violence in France is likely not over. What is more, without God, the “merciless” response, promised by the French president, can only coarsen the French people, even as it emboldens their Islamic attackers.

…and, keep in mind, prominent “leaders”, whether in or seeking the Oval office, wish to remove American reliance upon God, even as they welcome, to this country, the same people who wreak havoc throughout Europe and elsewhere.

France is already at Stage 3. How long Americans will wait until they transform the fight, against their government, to worship God into a fight, against a sworn enemy, that they can only win with God.

Like this:

Donald Trump, after threatening to do so five times previously, has finally stepped into American electoral politics, and at the game’s highest level. For the time being, he IS the show, the most popular man seeking the presidency, some 14 months before the election.

Of course, at this juncture, that is a safe bet to make against any candidate – Democrat, Republican, or other – making it against Trump is no more authoritative than making it against Jeb Bush or Hillary Clinton; everybody has their own campaign struggles. However, instead of trying to get the press to hedge their bets against him, Trump seems intent on making them double down.

Trump has taken on the media directly and made it personal. Regarding right-leaning news organizations, his debate dust-up with Megyn Kelly:

And Trump is even-handed, treating left-leaning organizations with the same “directness”:

even bringing the Univision minion back for a second helping of his “big-hair charm”:

Ironically, while others seek to gain allies in the press so they might get more attention – and a few more polling percentage points – Trump openly makes enemies of press members and laps the field, defying their conventional wisdom.

So, conventional wisdom says a rich, bombastic blowhard, with no political experience, like Donald Trump, should fade under campaign scrutiny, especially given his considerable baggage…

But he hasn’t…so far…despite the predictions, and to the horror, of the conventionally wise, who see many of his comments as falling outside the bounds of the “usual political discourse”, and many of his actions as running counter to the “normal political process”.

The press and the pundits just can’t seem to figure out the Trump phenomenon, though part of the reason should be intuitively obvious to the “establishment” GOP observer…

Simply put, Donald Trump is an American man:

• Not given to estrogen, or the “safe” and “practical” thought processes thereof,
• Possessed of confidence (even cockiness and arrogance), of ideals, and of values,
• Undeterred by success and unbowed by failure,
• Believing the best lies ahead, no matter what lay behind,
• Unafraid to pursue success, especially if it involves difficulty, and
• Unconcerned with your opinion about his choices, efforts, or priorities

In the last 55 years, only two such American men sought the Oval Office. One was John Fitzgerald Kennedy, who said during a 1962 speech at Rice University:

There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation many never come again.

But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal?
And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic?
Why does Rice play Texas?

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

The other was Ronald Wilson Reagan, who in 1961, said the following:

Our Founding Fathers, here in this country, brought about the only true revolution that has ever taken place in man’s history. Every other revolution simply exchanged one set of rulers for another set of rulers. But only here did that little band of men so advanced beyond their time that the world has never seen their like since, evolve the idea that you and I have within ourselves the God-given right and the ability to determine our own destiny. But freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. The only way they can inherit the freedom we have known is if we fight for it, protect it, defend it and then hand it to them with the well-taught lessons of how they in their lifetime must do the same. And if you and I don’t do this, then you and I may well spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it once was like in America when men were free.

These are the themes and the words that Americans long to hear: of their ability, of their opportunity, to challenge them to exceptionalism. That is what they hear when Trump says he intends to “Make America Great Again”. To be sure, Trump does not deliver the message with the same power and urgency. But it is the same spirit – of seeing a problem, issuing a challenge, and saying America and her people can rise to it – that appears in Trump’s words, that peaks out from behind his arrogance, that shines through despite the bluster.

Trump tells America that it can take on the world and win. He does so with brashness, without apology, and without concern for naysayers. He is as the Quarterback who swaggers onto the field – down 6 points, 90 seconds left in the game, on his own 1-yard line, no timeout to call – and tells everyone in the huddle, “Let’s go win this thing”.

By comparison, Trump’s rivals, the press, and the political pundits are as trainers on the sideline, who simply hope the team leaves the field “healthy”, having already accepted the likelihood of defeat. They do not understand that the American spirit and ethic:

• Values Victory over mere safety,
• Values Achievement over comfort, and
• Values being a flawed World Leader over being a good world partner.

Trump’s appeal is not that he is uniquely qualified to quarterback the American team; he may not be. He is not the best speaker. He is not the most politically skilled. He is far from the most diplomatic. However, he seems the only one in the race who recognizes that no one is playing the quarterback position; Trumo is willing to step into the huddle, and call plays. For that reason, he is, so far, almost bulletproof: when you remind a great people that they are great, then they will hear and support your message.

And, as long as Trump continues in that vein, every little thing he does will be magic to the American people.

Like this:

Arthur Robert Ashe, Jr., was a black man, of the 1960’s and 1970’s, who excelled in athletics and had a mind for other important pursuits. Like Curt Flood, who challenged Major League Baseball’s Reserve Clause as unfair to players; like Jim Brown, who retired from the NFL – at his peak – rather than allow the Cleveland Browns to dictate to him. Others included Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali, Lew Alcindor/Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Bill Russell. These were passionate sportsmen, but each knew where sports ended and dignity began.

A little more about Arthur Ashe…

Born July 10, 1943 in Richmond, Virginia, to married parents. His mother died in 1950. His father raised his children with strict discipline. Ashe and his younger brother attended church every Sunday. Their father timed the walk from school, and Ashe had 12 minutes to get home after the last bell. Mindful of his son’s slight build, the elder Ashe forbade his son to play football.

Ashe began playing tennis at age 7, first mentored by Richmond’s best black tennis player, then by another black man who coached Althea Gibson. When segregation in Richmond limited his competitive options, he spent his senior year of high school living with the family of another black man in St. Louis, who coached him as well. In response, Ashe became the first black to win the National Junior Indoor Championship in 1962.

Arthur Ashe received a tennis scholarship to UCLA, and was the first black ever selected for the U.S. Davis Cup Team, in 1963. He won the U.S. Amateur and U.S. Open Championships in 1968 (ranked Number 1 in the world during that year), the Australian Open in 1970, and Wimbledon in 1975 – also black American firsts.

Ashe, with Charlie Pasarell and Sheridan Snyder, founded the National Junior Tennis League in 1969, a program offering tennis opportunities to economically disadvantaged youngsters. It was the first organized tennis program in which Venus and Serena Williams participated.

A heart attack, and quadruple heart bypass surgery, in 1979 forced his retirement the next year; he had another bypass procedure in 1983. In 1988, Ashe had an emergency brain surgical procedure and published a three-volume history of black American athletes, A Hard Road to Glory. A blood transfusion, during the second heart procedure, infected Ashe with HIV; he died of AIDS-related pneumonia in 1993, spending the last year of his life raising awareness, and funding, to combat the disease.

Arthur Robert Ashe, Jr., the product of a black nuclear family, was building his own when he died. He was a great athlete who never caught a break. Rather, helped by other black men in his early years (including his father), he created them. He was an honorable man, made great by doing good, including excellence in his chosen field. And he responded to the misfortune of a fatal infection by fighting for others. He was, and remains, a legacy in which blacks can take pride…and one which they should defend.

Watching Abby Wambach and Bruce Jenner make that legacy a blank canvas onto which they painted the homosexual agenda – describing their “community” in sympathetic terms, and grabbing attention to help “mainstream” their “choices” – as “courageous” was distressing, and not just to Brett Favre (see video below, at @ 2:15 in)…

Instead of acknowledging sports relevant example of courage, ESPN gave the award to someone whose last sports involvement precedes the birthdates of their target audience. All while standing on the grave of a black man whose courage, character content – and myriad accomplishments – made his skin color an asset, at a time when it was a liability for many others. The black response to this blatant legacy hijacking…

Despite Wambach’s assertions to the contrary, the award was all about Jenner. He actively campaigned for this award. His team approached ESPN about it to promote his upcoming TV show and, when negotiations faltered, threatened canceling an interview with Diane Sawyer (see video, at @ 2:10). The result was a “win-win-win”: Jenner “won” publicity for his media efforts, ABC “won” a major news story, and ESPN “won” another political correctness opportunity.

The only losers were America’s blacks, who ESPN publicly pimped and, apparently, are too focused on irrelevant flags and monuments, churches burned by phantom racists (like lightning and poor electrical wiring), and seeking “justice” FOR every questionable (or worse) character the police encounter – while requiring no justice FROM them – to care what the presentation sought to take from them.

But Arthur Ashe, a black man who rose to the pinnacle into an internationally white-dominated sport, winning the hearts and minds of people the world over, by dint of effort and class, his legacy – as black as black excellence CAN be – is abandoned to a re-definition of courage shown in, or through, sports to mean standing up for one’s bedfellow choice or being openly confused about one’s gender?

That every black athlete did not stand up and walk out of the ESPY’s speaks volumes about today’s black American athletes. That not one of them did speaks even more loudly. To be fair, had Jenner worn a Confederate flag, and received the award atop Georgia’s Stone Mountain, then black NBA players might have reacted like this:

or black NFL Players might have exited the auditorium the way these entered a stadium:

As it was, they clapped politely at the public denigration of a legacy that helped make them both prosperous and popular.

This lack of black pride and principle is astonishing. Peter Berg, no one’s black man, at least attempted outrage, before the PC police got to the Friday Night Lights producer. But black athletes today seem more willing to make acceptable “protests” than principled statements, more concerned with being PC than with legacy. That attitude seems shared by many, if not most, blacks.

So, what are blacks about?

Is it taboo to disrespect black criminals, but acceptable to piss on the legacy of a black sports legend? Are we more committed to attacking symbols that we say we hate, be they flags, rocks, or 150-year-old military corpses, than to protecting the legacy of those who deserve love for what they showed of “blackness”?

Disney challenged American black self-respect and, so far, that challenge goes unanswered; perhaps all accept that homosexuals are more politically relevant than blacks today. After all:

So, the “black” president disregards blacks; now a major corporation follows suit. Both have done so on an international stage. A relevant people does not take such treatment lightly. So, the question is, “Are blacks yet relevant, or has Political Correctness finally claimed its first ethnic group victim in the U.S.?

Like this:

The U.S. and Iran – along with China, France, Russia, the U.K., and Germany – reached an “agreement” regarding the Iranian Nuclear Program. For Iran, the agreement is as historic as it is beneficial. By simply signing the document, Iran receives:

• Relief – with Russian and Chinese support, and over the objections of the outgoing Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff – from the arms embargo that currently keeps Iran from being even more powerful in the region, and

• Virtually no restrictions on its nuclear program after 15 years.

More money, more weapons and, in just a little while, no hindrances. In addition, Iran has already taken over four governments, while negotiating the nuclear treaty with Obama; their imperial intentions in the region are widely known. Since Obama took no strong action opposing Tehran’s ambitions, while negotiating a weak nuclear agreement with them, the U.S. also cedes control of the Middle East to Iran.

For their part, the U.S. and its allies receive…well, that is hard to say.

How weak is the agreement that the U.S. president insists be implemented? Let’s talk assurances… Obama insists that the limiting aspects, on Iran, of the agreement are not matters of trust, but matters of verification:

Neither did the U.S. gain any credible deterrent to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, should Tehran not wish to wait 15 years for an all-clear. Neither the sanctions that continue to lift, nor the arms embargo now set to fade, prevented Iran from pursuing its nuclear program or destabilizing one government after another in the region before…what is different now?

The president indicates that alternatives to this deal are either continuing Iran’s nuclear program, or war. Those are disingenuous alternatives. Regarding Iran’s nuclear program, it continues unabated since its 1982 post-Islamic Revolution restart, and this agreement lets Iran hide any portion of it that they wish to conceal. War is an option manufactured by this president, to garner support for talks with Iran: Obama undermined what could have forced Iran to capitulate by consistently relieving sanctions on Iran, since June 2013. Iran was not forced to the table; Obama removed viable alternative paths for the U.S.

So, the president dismantled what could have, without negotiation, ended Iran’s nuclear program, thereby ensuring negotiations with Iran on how to continue their nuclear program. How does that scenario benefit the U.S.? Why would anyone believe a deal, emerging from that scenario, is good for the United States of America? Now Congress has 60 days to review what took nearly two years to craft, under threat of veto if they do not rubber-stamp it.

Obama says, “no agreement means a greater chance of more war in the Middle East.” But there are numerous wars in the region and this agreement impacts none of them. To say it keeps the U.S. out of new Middle East wars is specious; will the U.S. defend Israel or another ally only if they suffer nuclear attack? How many nuclear weapons did Iran use to co-opt Yemen, Syria, or Iraq? The agreement does nothing to reduce the likelihood of future U.S. military involvement in that area of the world; it does not impact even our current military presence, else the troops recently deployed to fight Islamic State would come home, now that the Iranian nuclear deal is complete.

This agreement does not prevent war as much as it sets a future date for it, giving the enemy time to grow stronger, both militarily and financially – increasing the likelihood of an American defeat.

The America that was a great nation, seeing that threat, might already bear a bloodied sword. If she remained “a government of the people, by the people, and for the people”, then Iran would know her displeasure, likely by direct means. As it is, the “fundamental transformation” of America is almost complete, and “a people of the government, by the government, and for the government” have lost, not only the will to fight, but also the ability to know a bad deal when it’s about to kill them.

Like this:

• Whose adherents represent every U.S. political party as well as independents,
• Which successfully courts conservatives, liberals/progressives, and moderates,
• That overcomes all color and ethnicity barriers,
• That bridges social and economic divides,
• That ignores differences in education and intellect,
• That has operated since the 1960’s, with its origins in the nation’s earliest governance, and,
• Though it impacts all U.S. politics, most Americans have neither name nor label for it…

Is that conceivable, seeing that Americans seem more “divided” now than at any time since the Civil Rights Era, or World War I, or even the Civil War? Not only is it conceivable, it has dominated U.S. politics over the last half-century, and promises to stay influential for generations to come. What is this affiliation?

This writer calls it, “Nigg-mo-can”, a political ideology and affiliation based on the current answer to a nation-old question: “What shall we do with the Negro?” Interestingly, its varied adherents – black, white, Democrat, Republican, conservative, liberal, moderate, etc. rarely agree, on anything; however, since 1964, they are united in their response to that ancient query.

The young nation’s first response to that question came while determining how best to divide influence in the National Legislature among the States:

Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.

— United States Constitution, Article 1, Section 2, Paragraph 3

By the Constitution’s drafting in 1787, American slavery had a decidedly black face. So, why did the Founders not simply end the above passage, “three fifths of all Negros”? Because there were also white (especially Irish), partly white, and Indian slaves. The word “Persons” accounted for the mix of people in bondage at that time. The Constitution addressed slavery as a class problem – which it was; the race angle was not a primary governance issue.

Nevertheless, when the Civil War ended slavery in the U.S., a leading question of the day was what to do with those newly freed. Regarding blacks, Frederick Douglass, himself a former slave, offered this compelling response in 1865:

What I ask for the Negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice. The American people have always been anxious to know what they shall do with us. Gen. Banks was distressed with solicitude as to what he should do with the Negro. Everybody has asked the question, and they learned to ask it early of the abolitionists, “What shall we do with the Negro?”

I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are wormeaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall! I am not for tying or fastening them on the tree in any way, except by nature’s plan, and if they will not stay there, let them fall. And if the Negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone!

If you see him on his way to school, let him alone, don’t disturb him! If you see him going to the dinner table at a hotel, let him go! If you see him going to the ballot-box, let him alone, don’t disturb him! If you see him going into a work-shop, just let him alone, your interference is doing him a positive injury. Gen. Banks’ “preparation” is of a piece with this attempt to prop up the Negro. Let him fall if he cannot stand alone! If the Negro cannot live by the line of eternal justice, so beautifully pictured to you in the illustration used by Mr. Phillips, the fault will not be yours, it will be his who made the Negro, and established that line for his government. Let him live or die by that.

Yet, blacks demonstrated that the vote is not the “be-all and end-all” of political power. By 1900, some 30,000 trained black teachers were working in the South, and most blacks were literate. In 1909, the National Negro Committee, the precursor to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, formed. In 1926, Carter G. Woodson launched Negro History Week, the forerunner to Black History Month. The Army formed the Tuskegee Airmen in 1941. 1955 launched the 386-day Montgomery Bus Boycott. These are a few of the significant accomplishments blacks made in pursuit of their rights as citizens, despite strong opposition…and without the vote. Those successes did not go unnoticed by Lyndon Baines Johnson, who came to Washington, D.C., in 1937 as a Congressman from Texas and, in 1955, began his second Senate term.

“These Negroes, they’re getting pretty uppity these days and that’s a problem for us since they’ve got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we’ve got to do something about this, we’ve got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference.”

In 1964, Johnson announced his intent to visit, upon blacks, the very “mischief” and “positive injury” Frederick Douglass implored the nation to avoid, during the State of the Union address:

Johnson followed the War on Poverty declaration with the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Johnson also issued Executive Order 11246 in 1965, establishing “Affirmative Action” throughout the federal government’s Executive Branch. These are hailed among the greatest civil rights accomplishments in U.S. History…and it was a political master stroke.

Some dispute that, pointing out the benefit of securing the vote. Yes, but whom did the black vote benefit? Kessler offers this Lyndon Johnson quote, spoken to two governors aboard Air Force One, “I’ll have those n—–s voting Democratic for the next 200 years.” Fifty years later, Johnson’s words have Bible-prophet accuracy; blacks have given at least 74% of their votes to the Democrat Party since 1964, and are not 50 years better served for that loyalty.

Lyndon Johnson implemented the policies which make up the Nigg-mo-can response to the question, “What shall we do with the Negro?” By those policies, one can ascertain their beliefs:

• Nigg-mo-cans believe blacks deserve “a little something”, like the “benevolence” of unearned money; enough to quiet them down (in subsistence), not enough to make a(n economic achievement) difference. White Nigg-mo-cans seem to vote for dispensing these funds so they can either level, or avoid, a racism accusation. Dancing around the “racist” label allows whites, of all political stripes, to unite under the Nigg-mo-cans banner. For their part, black Nigg-mo-cans support nearly every conceivable government program for blacks as “payment for the struggle”. No Nigg-mo-cans, black or white, confront the black family devastation wrought by government programs, though they recognized the damaging links as early as 1965.

• Nigg-mo-cans believe blacks deserve “a little something”, like voting laws, which quiet them down by duping blacks into believing political power comes from ballot boxes – that others count – instead of united communities, accountable among themselves, actively pursuing their interests. They persist in telling blacks that the vote matters, despite a failed Detroit, an impotent and irrelevant Congressional Black Caucus, and an unhelpful Barack Obama.

• Nigg-mo-cans believe blacks deserve “a little something”, like civil rights and Affirmative Action laws, which quiet them down with assurances that others will not receive greater consideration than do they. Yet what difference do civil rights make, when that for which America’s blacks suffered are easily claimed by hispanics, homosexuals, and others, who neither waited as long, nor shed as much blood, to secure them? What difference Affirmative Action, the greatest beneficiary of which is white women, and which has actually worked against minorities in important situations.

Nigg-mo-cans believe, as did Lyndon Johnson, in giving blacks “a little something”. Unfortunately, few of them acknowledge it was never intended to make a difference. Seduced by the “compassion” of giving (what belongs to others), and of setting things right for blacks (by inflicting the wrongs done to blacks upon others), they intentionally blind themselves to the mischief they play with blacks, and the positive injury they cause. At their core, they either do not wish for blacks to stand unaided…or fear what blacks might accomplish without “help”. This perspective will guide their response to the question, “What shall we do with the Negro?”, until blacks either confront them, or the positive injuries become fatal.

In either case, the Nigg-mo-cans will then take their ideology and focus it on their next target people, re-branding themselves as the Hisp-mo-cans.